For me, we politically crossed into idiot America in the early 80s when Reagan promised that if you cut taxes, the resulting prosperity would more then make up the difference. (Of course he did so without cutting spending, hell we spent more on the military) but this started America's fixation with the concept that one could cut taxes, without having to make painful decisions. Now under Bush we are fighting a war, and the pols are doing the same routine, but now they openly cut taxes and raise spending without giving a **** about the Federal Deficit which is increasingly being serviced by short term loans. AND WE LET THEM DO THIS! And there are no negative consequences for their actions.

Incidently I don't think you are dumb if you advocate cutting taxes as long as you cut spending first to balance the budget. Its when you cut Taxes first and somehow expect to then be able to produce matching spending cuts after the fact that you approach doorknob status.

This part in particular makes baby Chomsky cry. Given the prevalence of readily available information on the intarweb, I'm dumbfounded by people's ignorance. I know there's quite a bit of misinformation out there, but a little critical thinking goes a long way in discerning facts from wishful thinking.

unfortunately critical thinking is a learned skill that isn't taught in the schools anymore...

And as for the Interweb there also the crap seems to be more readily available that the good stuff...

But Americans rejoyced because this sad state of affair is now prevalent worlwide, yes in France and Belgium we also start having Religious nuts who want to put creationism in school and politicians are found guilty of crimes but still can run on the following elections....

Example: There was a big thing here in Belgium about the Formula 1 racing event, the politicians sign a contract with good old Bernie (head of the F1 org) that basically screwed the tax payer of 12 million €, after investigation one of the politician responsible said for his defense "yeah I signed the contract but it was in English so I didn't know what I was signing"

And this guy is still running in the next elections....makes me want to bang my head in the wall.

Martial Arts is like sex, if you over complicate it with exotic sounding names, theories and principles, you end up fucking yourself in the ass. -Ronin69